No guaranteed temple

[Strongpoint]

Crawl is about adapting, but not really when you choose the god. I know what God I'll choose as soon as I start the game. Yes some items\mutations may change my decision (Like superb weapon with pain = kiku) but it's not very likely. It's a good thing that not all gods are present in the temple every game, but it's still not enough, IMO. Because your god is still guaranteed, sooner or later. I'd prefer to see altars as valuable and as rare as spellbooks...


Removing temple is a bad thing, because it's kind of achievement, but that guaranteed mini branch in some games could be randomly (like snake, shoals, swamp) substituted to:

Academy - place where you can get X skillpoints in one chosen skill, once
Armory - some good weapons, armor,shield - choose one
Library - same as armory but with books
Marketplace - several permanent shops, maybe with reduced prices to make it differ. Or unusual goods, like mutations, or permanent allies

Now say me why it's a bad idea

[TGW]

Religion is a fundamental part of Crawl and denying access to many characters would make the game worse. The status quo is good in this case.

If gods could just be unavailable in the early game, it would remove the current "tough it out" versus "settle for another god" choice because it would be much safer to take the first decent god you find.

[galehar]

startscumming?

[mageykun]

I would totally rage quit if I discovered the temple were missing entirely from a game. Well, assuming the lack of a god didn't get me killed first.

Isn't this kind of the point of the corrupted temple? Altars aren't all guaranteed in the temple, and some get stuck in inaccessible overflow vaults.

I suppose we could make it more interesting with a few more temple designs, aimed at forcing interesting choices. A small temple, with only a few altars. Or a damaged temple that has all the altars, but denies access to some. Or a clear glass wall though the middle. Shown zot traps, or dangerous clouds, blocking access to part of the temple. Or lava flooding part of it. Or regular water flooding. Or say the temple has been used to seal up some evil- split the altars between a few rooms, and one room has those new warning runes on it. Locked inside, with a few altars is something demony.

[Jenx]

I find the overflow of altars to be bad enough. Just because some players regularly have 2-3 wins a week, it doesn't mean everyone does. Some of us still struggle to get some characters to the temple. The game is already hard enough, let's not try to make it harder for no reason, ok?

[zasvid]

Personally, I liked the idea of removing the Temple and overflow altars, and replacing them with mini-temples, which are simple vaults with three or four altars each. All the Temple gods would be guaranteed between D:2-9 as now, but they'd appear in a less chaotic pattern.

It would be awesome if mini temples were themed somewhat (like the bridge of good gods). Ecumenical or not, altars of Zin or TSO next to Kiku and Yred seem a bit out-of-flavour.

[smock]

Personally, I liked the idea of removing the Temple and overflow altars, and replacing them with mini-temples, which are simple vaults with three or four altars each. All the Temple gods would be guaranteed between D:2-9 as now, but they'd appear in a less chaotic pattern.

It would be awesome if mini temples were themed somewhat (like the bridge of good gods). Ecumenical or not, altars of Zin or TSO next to Kiku and Yred seem a bit out-of-flavour.

Agreed. I love the mini-temples idea.

I know that temples being guarded by monsters is not a tremendously popular idea, but with mini-temples you'd might face an interesting choice: Fight the cyclops guarding the Oka/Trog temple, or just kneel at the unguarded Makhleb altar.

[TGW]

I think mini-temples could be nice but they should work like overflow altars instead of replacing the temple.

[boatie]

I think maybe making it more likely to have a corrupt temple would do this, if it needed to be done.

[dpeg]

An old proposal of Lemuel was to scrap the Temple completely and only use random altars in the dungeon. Of course, this creates a lot of interesting decisions. But it can also cripple characters. After quite some rage within the devteam, we opted for the current model, which is rather conservative: altars are guaranteed, but they may come up later than you want. I was the one who fought for overflow altars back then (as opposed to ensuring all gods appear in the Temple -- the old model), but I still cannot support Temple removal. Among other things, reaching the Temple is a great achievement for many players. Seeing a shop may be a rare event for a new player. But shops are random. The Temple is reliable.
There is a certain tension between demands here: some players want more randomness, other complain about the overflow altars that make you work for a god (like the altar inside a lake). In my opinion, we should have more of the latter. An idea that's not been explored so far - but will be in a moment - are overflow altars where you see the altar together with a fitting monster. Your choice of when and how to take on the fight. Or to take an easier god right away.

[onryo]

Is there a setting within the ai to have a monster return to a certain point if it's not currently chasing the player? It would be cool if a monster guarding an altar couldn't just be woken up, pulled away, then escaped from.

[dpeg]

Is there a setting within the ai to have a monster return to a certain point if it's not currently chasing the player? It would be cool if a monster guarding an altar couldn't just be woken up, pulled away, then escaped from.

Yes, that is done by the "patrolling" flag when making a vault.

[smock]

An idea that's not been explored so far - but will be in a moment - are overflow altars where you see the altar together with a fitting monster. Your choice of when and how to take on the fight. Or to take an easier god right away.

I'm looking forward to it.